Banzai Pecan Game Sample - PC/Indie
0"Banzai Pecan: Last Hope for the Young Century" is an ambitious, mildly entertaining independent one-plane beat-em-up game by "Serious*Impact Works", that has combined nearly a decade of ideas from past experiences and ventures. Inspired by comedy, Japanese culture, classic beat-em-ups, anime and manga of yore, the game parodies and glosses over many things from otaku behavior to overly heroic tokusatsu drama to incredibly stereotypical tropes and more, bundling it with simple side-scrolling action, comedic sexualization and a variety of cool extras. The game is primarily developed by three people, and most in-game characters are named after food (similarly to titles like "Brave Fencer Musashi" and "Sweetful Princess").
In the game, which takes place some time in the future, Pecan Apple (next in line to inherit the skills of the legendary "Banzaider", Lavenda) and her best friend, Flan Nougatt, are bickering amongst themselves when they hear a plea for help not too far away. They trace the source of the scream only to find out that Pecan's (soon-to-be) boyfriend, Cinnamon Basil, has been captured by a Succubus named Spicy Jalapina, who challenges Pecan to battle. Unbeknownst to Jalapina however, is that Pecan has been granted the power by "Banzai Lavenda" to transform into a super heroic alter-ego, Banzai Pecan, who has the strength of ten-thousand men and the power to destroy all evil in the universe with relentless fury. After defeating her, Cinnamon is later kidnapped by "Lady Strawberry", a member of the "Sexilicious Seven" who need the body of a handsome man to perform a dark "demonic apocalypse" ritual. So... defying the typical hero(es) saves damsel in distress routine, the damsel in this game must save her somewhat wimpy boyfriend while fighting seven deadly exes or something... wait, wrong reference. Anyway, you get the idea. Twists and comical hijinks ensue.
There is nothing inherently wrong with the way Banzai Pecan is presented; the game has a variety of features such as secret codes and extras in "Flan's Room", sounds good, and looks decent, though the game lacks enemy variety. The gameplay is another matter however. Pecan starts with a number of basic attacks at her disposal (punches, kicks, throws, projectiles, etc.) and earns more as you progress through the game, but defeating certain waves of enemies requires more luck than skill at various points, dismissing the notion that the game borrows Arcade-style difficulty from its ancestors as some portions are simply unrealistically unbalanced (you can beat arcade games without getting hit or losing a credit from beginning to end... that's unlikely in this game's case).
Even when grabbing the games various item pick-ups (marginal health recovery, SaviorJun figures, revival items, etc.), you aren't guaranteed a significant edge against some of the game's later adversaries, and if you lose your revival on a boss, you might as well start the level over to avoid a keyboard-smashing scenario. Some balancing issues are being ironed out in future releases of the game (multiple difficulty settings, enemy collisions with throws, etc.), but the main challenges come from unstunable mid-bosses, level hazards (some of which are cheaply invisible), recovery from attacks, and occasional lag. To the game's credit, each of the game's bosses possess different attack patterns and different traits to overcome them, but it's not cool when even reasonable beat-em-up players give up after losing five or ten times just on the first few scrub bosses.
However, at the end of the day, the game manages to be addicting as you want to know what crazy situation Pecan will face next. Banzai Pecan is not free. You can get the game at:
http://www.desura.com/games/banzai-pecan-last-hope-for-the-young-century
http://www.indievania.com/games/banzai-pecan-last-hope-young-century
You can also learn more about it at:
http://seriousimpact-works.com/bpecan/
www.youtube.com/user/BrothaKyo (one involved with BP's creation)
This is a video of the game in action. Enjoy.